Supreme Court Lets Stand Rulings on Drug Tests, Teaching Materials

The U.S. Supreme Court last week rejected an Indiana family's
challenge to a district's policy of random drug testing of high school
students involved in extracurricular activities.

Acting on more than 1,600 cases on the first day of its new term,
the court on Oct. 5 also rejected the appeal of North Carolina teacher
Margaret Boring, who was disciplined by school officials after
selecting a controversial play for her students to perform.

The high court's actions were not rulings on the merits of the two
cases and set no national precedent. But the denials of review leave
intact lower-court rulings that were important victories for school
districts on the issues of expanded student drug testing and control
over classroom curricula.

It is unlikely that the Supreme Court has given its last word on
those two topics, as there are other cases in the legal pipeline that
address them.

The drug-testing case involves the 2,800-student Rush County
district east of Indianapolis, which in 1996 adopted a policy requiring
students in any extracurricular club or activity to consent to random
drug tests.

The district was one of several around the country to go one step
beyond the drug testing of student athletes upheld by the Supreme Court
in the 1995 case of Vernonia School District v. Acton. In
that case, the high court said the testing was justified because school
officials perceived a drug-abuse problem among the district's athletes.
The court also noted that participants in interscholastic sports have a
diminished expectation of privacy because they change clothes and
shower in locker rooms.

The Rush County policy was challenged by the parents of William
Todd, a student at Rush County High School who was barred from a
position that involved videotaping the football team because he refused
to consent to random drug testing.

Both a federal district court and a panel of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 7th Circuit, based in Chicago, upheld the expansion of
drug testing to extracurricular activities.

Leadership Roles

The appeals court said the testing was justified because
participation in such activities is voluntary and club members, like
student athletes, "can take leadership roles in the school community
and serve as an example to others."

Arguing on behalf of the Todd family in Todd v. Rush
County Schools (Case No. 97-2021), lawyers for the Indiana Civil
Liberties Union told the high court that the 7th Circuit ruling was
wrong because nonathlete participants in extracurricular activities do
not have diminished expectations of privacy. Unlike athletes, they "do
not strip to participate in the activity," the lawyers said.

The high court justices rejected the appeal without comment.

Other courts have recently signaled that there are limits to student
drug testing. A federal district court in Colorado in June struck down
random drug testing of students in extracurricular activities--the same
type of policy at issue in the Indiana case. And, ruling on a case from
a different Indiana district, a 7th Circuit appellate panel recently
struck down the Anderson district's policy of drug testing all students
involved in fights on campus.

Controversial Materials

Separately last week, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Ms.
Boring, who was disciplined by the Buncombe County, N.C., district in
1991 for her selection of the Lee Blessing play "Independence," a
family drama that includes a lesbian daughter and another who is
pregnant out of wedlock.

Ms. Boring was transferred to another teaching job because
administrators said she failed to follow a controversial-materials
policy in staging the play for a student competition.

Both a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., rejected Ms. Boring's lawsuit. The
4th Circuit ruled 7-6 last February that a drama teacher's selection of
a play is a curriculum decision subject to the control of school
administrators.

In their appeal in Boring v. Buncombe County Board of
Education (No. 97-1835), Ms. Boring's lawyers argued that teachers
have First Amendment protections against being disciplined for
expressing controversial ideas in the classroom.

The appeals court's decision "would permit school authorities to
discipline a teacher for selecting curricular materials that are
regarded, after the fact, as insufficiently 'orthodox' to suit the
views of the authorities," Ms. Boring's appeal stated.

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